


Walk Me Home

by Aria_Faye



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Baby Yuri Plisetsky, Gen, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, Pre-Series, Victor's canon depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 01:44:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17315726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aria_Faye/pseuds/Aria_Faye
Summary: Yuri's earliest memory of the ice is from when he was three years old.





	Walk Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I am still alive. I hope to post an update for OBBT soon. But for now, have this little thing. I wrote it for the Push/Pull Victurio zine.

Yuri’s earliest memory of the ice is from when he’s three years old—just barely big enough to fit into the smallest pair of rental skates as he teeters through his swizzles with other kids about his age. It’s his first Learn-To-Skate lesson, and the teachers are doing all kinds of fun things. They draw patterns on the ice in marker for Yuri and the other kids to follow. They drop stuffed animals for them to pick up (Yuri almost fights another kid for the tiger). They play games to work on snowplow stops. It’s all great fun.

The lesson only uses half the rink, really, with the rest open for other people. A couple twenty-somethings clutch the wall as they slowly make their way around, laughing. There’s an old man practicing small curves and turns. And then, there’s the other boy (at least, Yuri _thinks_ he’s a boy), doing all kinds of beautiful spins and jumps that make his long hair fly around like a hurricane of stars.

Yuri can’t help but stare at him.

The boy launches himself into the air with the harsh clip of a toe pick digging into the ice, and Yuri watches, breathless, as he hangs there for a second.

Yuri’s teacher scolds him for not paying attention just as the boy’s other skate hits the ice again.

For the rest of the lesson, Yuri tries to focus on stroking and snowplows—he really does. But it’s so hard to concentrate with that boy on the far side of the rink, bending in ways Yuri has never seen before and flying through impossible tricks.

He’s still skating after Yuri’s lesson ends.

Yuri lingers on the ice a while, even though he knows his dedushka is waiting for him out in the warm front room. He strokes over to where the boy has paused by the boards, drinking some water and tying back his silver hair with an elastic that he pulls from his wrist with his teeth. Yuri snowplows to a stop and watches him. Waits.

When the boy notices him, his face softens into a smile. “Hi,” he says. “Are you having fun?”

Yuri nods.

The other boy smiles bigger. “I’m Victor.” He leans against the boards casually and looks like he honest-to-god _belongs_ there. “What’s your name?” he asks, easy and kind. Yuri likes him immediately.

“Yuri Plisetsky,” Yuri says. “Will you teach me something?”

Victor puts a finger to his mouth and cocks his head. “What would you like to learn?” he asks.

“Everything.”

With a little laugh, Victor says, “I don’t think you’re quite ready for a triple toe loop yet, but let me see…” He thinks for a second and then his eyes light up. “Okay, watch me,” he says, and he skates a little bit away from the boards. He strokes a couple times, and then he glides on one foot for a second before putting the other one down, and suddenly he’s going backward. Yuri’s eyes feel like saucers.

Victor stops cleanly by Yuri (much sharper and showier than Yuri’s snowplow) and smiles. “That’s called a mohawk turn,” he says. “It’s a big step from what you’re already doing, but I think you can get it with practice.”

Yuri draws himself up to his full, tiny height and declares, “I want to do everything you can do!”

Victor says that, if he works hard enough, someday he just might.

After practicing mohawks with Victor for a half hour, Yuri can almost get them without Victor holding his hands. When they have to get off the ice for it to be cleaned, Yuri waves to Victor and staggers toward his dedushka in his heavy skates. Dedushka immediately scoops him up in a hug. “How was skating today, Yurotchka?” he asks, and Yuri tells him all about the stuffed animals and the games and the marker lines on the ice. He doesn’t mention the mohawks—not with Victor just across the room with his skates still on, blades dripping as he munches on a protein bar and works on something in a spiral notebook.

When a teenage girl approaches Victor, he looks up and smiles, big and bright. She asks blushingly for his autograph, and he clicks his pen. Signs his name like he’s done it a thousand times. Yuri squints—Victor’s just signed a picture of himself, it appears.

Huh.

Yuri drops his rental skates back at the window, and Dedushka takes his hand. As they walk home, Yuri tells him all about how the boy with silver hair helped him learn mohawk turns.

 

-

 

Yuri’s six and steadfastly trying not to cry. While he was on the ice, his dedushka had an accident and had to go to the hospital, and he was supposed to pick Yuri up from the rink. Yakov (Victor’s coach) got the call while Yuri was skating, and, when he asked Yuri if there was anyone he could call to walk him home, Yuri just shook his head.

Mila, a girl only a few years older than Yuri (and therefore much wiser than adults) plops down beside him on the bench. She slings an arm around his shoulders and hugs him close for a second. Yakov is her coach too, and she’s a lot better on the ice than Yuri. She sometimes teaches him things, and he’s catching up. Soon, he’ll be too advanced for group lessons, and it’s mostly thanks to Mila. Yuri likes her, even if she’s annoying sometimes.

“Don’t worry, little Yura,” she says in all her Big-Girl sagacity. “If you wait until Yakov is done with my lesson, I’m sure he’ll take you home.”

Yakov, who is currently on the ice with Georgi, cannot corroborate this.

Yuri sighs. Rubs at his nose with the back of his hand and pulls away from Mila’s hold. Resignedly, he gets up and wanders over to the glass doors that keep the actual rink away from the warm front room. He watches Georgi fall while attempting some big and difficult jump.

“Still here, Yuri?”

Yuri turns around.

Victor’s just gotten out of the locker rooms, if his wet hair is any indication. He’s piled it all in a messy knot on top of his head. He looks kind of funny in jeans, sneakers, and an oversized sweater, Yuri thinks. More like a normal person and less like a famous skater.

(Yuri knows Victor is famous now; he learned this after seeing Victor skate on TV.)

Yuri scuffs his shoe into the ground and says nothing.

Then, Victor is at his side, ruffling his hair until Yuri glares up at him—which is apparently what Victor wanted, since he’s smirking.

(Yuri also knows that Victor is really weird; he learned this when Victor started making him mad on purpose.)

“What’s wrong, Yuri?” he asks, and his voice is gentle.

So Yuri tells him.

Victor frowns for a second before saying, “I was just leaving. Want me to walk you home?”

Even though everything in him is singing with relief—at suddenly feeling _not as stranded_ —he still hears himself say, “No, it’s okay.”

From across the room, Mila pipes in: “He’d have to wait for Yakov, and that’ll be another two hours.”

Victor smiles down at him and offers his hand. “Well then come on, little Yuri. Let’s get you home.”

Victor’s clearly not spent much time around kids, Yuri realizes; his strides are very long, and he doesn’t make any effort to shorten them for Yuri’s sake. Instead, he ends up looking down at Yuri (who’s trotting just to keep up) with confusion, like he’s not sure why Yuri’s hurrying. A couple blocks later, he seems to get it though, because he slows down and Yuri stops running.

They don’t talk much on the walk home. Now that Yuri knows Victor’s famous, he’s never sure what to say to him. They’re not even close to being peers in skill, and, outside from asking pointers on his upright spin, he doesn’t really have much to talk about with Victor.

When Victor drops him off, his neighbor answers the door. Dedushka is inside, lying on the couch under a blanket. Yuri runs to him, and he doesn’t even remember about Victor until Victor’s already gone.

 

-

 

Yuri’s eight the first time he ever sees the inside of Victor’s apartment.

Dedushka has to go away for a week, so Victor volunteers to let Yuri stay over. Yuri figures it’ll be better than his neighbors (whose house always smells like cigars and whose shivering little dog absolutely hates him), so he jumps on the opportunity like he’d jumped on Yakov’s offer to coach him a year ago.

Victor’s a little awkward at first, but their practice times at the rink give them a structure to work around, which helps. Victor’s lesson first, followed by Yuri, then Georgi, then Mila. Yuri shares the ice with Victor, watching him warm up and train and jump and fall. He warms up himself while Victor throws himself at his failures with such fierce determination that Yuri sometimes can’t look away. Seeing Victor like this—gritty and frustrated and sweating, with feet that Yuri knows bleed inside his skates… it’s addicting. Heady. There’s something beautiful in knowing that the rest of the world only sees the pretty thing that Victor is in competition, while Yuri gets to see everything that Victor does to get there. There are some who think Victor doesn’t deserve his medals because he hasn’t suffered enough for them; Yuri sees the steel in Victor’s eyes and the bruises on his body, and he decides that those people know nothing.

He decides too that he’s going to be just like Victor someday. Better than him, if he can manage it. Because Victor shows him every day that his only limitation is his own resolve, and Yuri knows he can work hard. He’ll be great, one day. Until then, he flexes his Biellmann and works on his doubles.

When it’s his turn to skate, Victor always watches him. Sometimes it’s from the boards, sometimes from across the ice, but Victor’s always watching. On the walk back to his apartment, he offers tips and advice, which Yuri soaks up greedily.

At night, they order takeout stir-fry, and Victor patches up his feet while they watch a movie of Yuri’s choice. Makkachin ( _this_ dog absolutely loves Yuri, thank you very much) lays across their laps, and they don’t really talk. It’s a comfortable silence, though, like a silence between friends.

One day, after practice, Victor and Yuri are walking back to the apartment when Yuri sees an ice cream shop. He slows down, tugs on Victor’s sleeve. For a second, Victor looks at the ice cream logo on the door like he’s never seen a scoop of mint chip in a waffle cone in his life. Then, he smiles and lets Yuri drag him inside. He buys Yuri a double scoop of neon-colored vanilla and himself a single of strawberry in a little paper cup. Yuri sees him take the tiniest bite of his ice cream before stopping and smiling, just letting Yuri devour his own cone in peace. Maybe Victor doesn’t like ice cream that much, Yuri thinks.

But, now that Yuri’s got his mind on it, he realizes that he’s barely seen Victor eat anything at all besides their nightly stir-fry. He has a cup of coffee and a bottle of some disgusting-looking green juice for breakfast, a protein bar at the rink later, and then dinner with Yuri. It seems like it isn’t much at all.

Still though, Victor’s a grown-up, Yuri reasons. He can take care of himself.

 

-

 

Victor’s not at the rink today.

Yuri can’t remember a day when Victor hasn’t been at the rink without at least a text. But nobody knows where he is, no matter how many times Yuri asks. At first, he thinks they’re trying to keep it from him because he’s the youngest person there, but he’s ten years old—old enough to know what the hell is going on.

He’s about to bang his fist against Yakov’s office door and demand an explanation when he hears raised voices from inside. Yuri presses his ear to the door.

“—don’t understand how you could _not know_ about this, Yakov,” a woman spits. “You’re with the boy every day!”

“Lilia, you know Vitya.” Yakov sounds exhausted; Yuri can picture him rubbing his temples with that weary face he makes at Victor sometimes.

“Yes, but—”

“Then you’ll know he doesn’t talk about things. Not real things.”

“He’s very like his coach in that way.” The woman—Lilia—sighs. “But you see what he’s doing, at least?”

Yakov hesitates, and Lilia doesn’t wait for him. “He’s been depressed for a long time, Yakov. I can see it. This—? It’s not like him. He’s not okay. Our Vitya is hurting, and he’s trying to make it stop.”

Yakov waits for a long moment before speaking. This time, Lilia allows the silence. “What are you saying?” he finally asks.

Lilia’s voice is quiet. Tiny. “I worry about suicide,” she says.

“Lilia, it was only his hair—”

“—which was a large part of him! His image, his self-esteem—and I don’t just mean within himself, Yakov. I’m talking about his _global image_. He’s just essentially destroyed the Victor that the world knows. Killed him. You and I both know this won’t help our Vitya feel any better, so what’s next, hmm? Hurting himself? For all we know, he may have already started that years ago.”

Yakov draws a shaking breath. “I think I should…”

“Yes, you should. I’ll send the rest of them home. Go look after our oldest.”

Yuri hears Yakov pulling on his coat, and he bolts away from the door just in time for an imposing woman with fierce features and dark hair pulled starkly back into a bun to walk out. Her eyes are red. “Oh, Yuri,” she says when she sees him. “Yakov has to go for the rest of the day. Something’s come up. Here, I’ll walk you home.”

They don’t talk.

The second Lilia leaves, Yuri checks his apartment quickly to be sure Dedushka is still out. Then, he runs to Victor’s.

It’s stupid, he knows, for a kid his age to be alone in the streets. But it’s the middle of the day, and he can’t help it—he needs to see Victor. He can’t say why, but he knows it, as deeply as he knows his own name.

When he gets to the door, he finds it already open. Not intentionally, but more like someone just never properly shut it. He sees Yakov inside, hears him talking. He’s that mixture of pissed off and concerned—the one that’s just for Victor. Across from him, Victor sits at the table, face expressionless.

His hair is short.

Yuri knows the minute Victor sees him there, peering around the doorframe from the hallway. Victor shifts, just a little, and their eyes meet, and he interrupts Yakov’s ranting with a soft, “Yura.”

Yakov turns, and Yuri expects him to be angry. But he just looks tired.

For a moment, the three of them stay like that, like someone paused the movie of their lives. Then, Victor quietly says, “Yakov, why don’t you go.”

“If you do anything in front of the boy, Vitya—”

Victor just shakes his head gravely.

A minute later, Yakov is gone. Yuri sits in his vacated spot across the table from Victor. Victor, whose eyes are dull and his skin too pale, and he clearly hasn’t shaved, and his haircut looks like it was a hack job with kitchen shears. There’s long silver hair all over the floor.

Yuri looks right at Victor and says, “You look like shit.” It’s the first time he’s ever used that word. Shit.

Victor almost smiles.

 

-

 

It’s the night before his first Junior Nationals, and Victor is walking with him back to the hotel. Yuri wanted to keep practicing, but Victor pulled him off the ice anyway, and now Yuri’s sulkily trudging along beside him. Or, trudging as sulkily as he can when his muscles all feel strung tight with nerves.

Out of nowhere, Victor says, “Do you remember what you said to me the day we met?”

Yuri thinks back. He’d been young then. Very young. “That was almost ten years ago,” he deadpans, and he’s proud when his voice sounds normal—not shaky like he feels.

Victor smiles that stupid, infuriatingly enigmatic smile of his. The one that Yuri’s never seen him give anyone else. “You said you wanted to do everything I could do,” Victor tells him. “I was fifteen then, and a junior champion. You’re twelve now, and you’ve already reached your goal—you can do everything I could do as of the day we met.”

Yuri nearly stops dead.

Instead, he blinks up at Victor, and then down at the sidewalk.

At the hotel door, Victor pauses, touching the handle but not quite pulling. “You’re going to be better than me one day,” he says, like it’s as factual as the weather. “Don’t forget who taught you mohawk turns, yeah?”

Yuri huffs a small laugh that ends up sounding nervous. He and Victor stand there for a while, still but for the wind tossing their hair and scarves around. Victor’s got his free hand shoved in his pocket, and Yuri can’t explain why he wants to hold it so badly. Why just being close to Victor—someone who _understands_ , who’s been where he’s at right now—feels so important all of a sudden. He can’t really help himself when he blurts, “Can I stay in your room tonight?”

But Victor, who _understands_ and has been there, smiles (warm this time) and says, “Do you know where it is?” When Yuri clearly does not, Victor finally opens the door. “I’ll walk you.”


End file.
